


Magic Has Teeth

by lotuskasumi



Series: Emily/Outsider: Weak for you alone. [4]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Breaking Up & Moving On/Giving In, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, resolved emotional tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8708161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotuskasumi/pseuds/lotuskasumi
Summary: “And who would pay such a price, I wonder?” he mused.He wants me to say it. He knows I want to say it, too. Coward. Bastard.Of all the things they had to share as a common element, it had to be this? But Emily wouldn’t fall so neatly into his hands as all that. No, she would show him instead.---With a heavy heart and small regrets, Emily lets one relationship slip away while she dives head first into another.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse me playing fast and loose with Fugue Feast canon for the sake of drama.

Emily heaved a long, weary sigh as she scratched out yet another botched sentence and tried again. _Everything magic has teeth_ , she wrote, smiling wryly as she dabbled in half-blasphemies for the sake of a pretty speech. _It has a tongue to taste, clutches to fall into, and claws to escape. It is ever-present, ever-tempting–and ever within our ability to command._

Cackling quietly to herself, Emily started a fresh line of the speech and pressed the pentip down hard. _Look away, the Abbey says. Avert your eyes, shun the dark gaze, and steer each step you take from the swarming shadows of sin. It’s always far easier to preach what is almost impossible to_ be. _But we aren’t without some hope. We known that we can walk in the light from within, and with all the grace and due diligence born from the Seven Strictures. It is a path both razor-wire thin and as vast as the sea: hard to walk, but impossible, in the end, to miss._

_Everything magic has teeth, yes, but we are mortal hearts born with fire and fury, with wills that bend but rarely break._

Emily set down her pen and leaned back to read these lines over again. They were a bit more surreal than she would have liked, and she’s sure that the new High Overseer will grumble at the attention paid to certain heretical details, but they were all the words she could think of without risking downright hypocrisy. It was customary for the Empress–or Emperor–to write a speech for the yearly Fugue Feast, less to condone or endorse the oncoming hedonism, and more to remind the good citizens of the balance they choose to overlook in place of more immediate distractions. And for the first time, Emily was looking forward to the mad craze for reasons that had very little to do with her tongue-in-cheek speech.

The Outsider had promised to visit her–not said, not declared, not even hinted. _Promised_. It shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it did, but then again, Emily was growing woefully accustomed to the foundations of promises falling through.

She thought of Wyman for one twisting, awful second, before shaking her head. _Think of something else. Something better._

It had been almost suspiciously easy to get the Outsider to promise he would see her. Emily had pried the vow from the Outsider with shockingly little effort on her part, besides a sharp, focused glare and a hand on his wrist, squeezing the cold flesh beneath his brown coat. “You’ll come see me? You swear it?”

“I will come to you, as you ask.” He had said, and he paused, weighing the next words carefully in his mouth before releasing them, making them real and true and heard. “I promise you, Emily.”

The Outsider’s voice was always heavy when they spoke, but these words carried a heat that was all to easy for Emily to recognize. _Wyman used to sound like that before… before things changed._

Things were still changing, and Emily along with them, and however much that might drive a wedge between her old lover, Emily knew that she was far past the point of regret.

* * *

As terrible and dark and strange as the Outsider was and would always be, Emily’s heart still lifted at the thought of his upcoming visit. As the days passed, the memory his voice rang in her ears like the doleful chime of a far away, mournful bell.

 _“I promise, Emily.”_ Promises were a rare gem for her these days. Yes, there were nobles and ladies and even philosophers ever vying for her favor and good graces, but promises, true vows, sworn oaths made without a thought and with the full, raw roots of the heart were not easily given at all. And they were, of course, exactly what Emily wanted.

Wyman once laughed and called her selfish for it, not meaning to due her harm, but not minding if they did. How could it be greedy to demand everything from a heart sworn to her care, when she would tend to it dearly, cradle it close, and guard it the way she had seen her parents’ love shape and guide each other? Emily only asked for everything because she knew she would give everything right back in return. What else was love but an equal, gutting exchange, raw, ruthless, and true? It was a nasty business, becoming vulnerable. But Emily would do it–only if it was done to her first.

Hadn’t it, though? Hadn’t it already been said, perhaps not in so many words, but in the only bundle of words that mattered? _“I would pull the magic from my bones for you.”_

Emily hadn’t imagined the Outsider would ever say this to her, no matter how difficult it was to believe that he had, in fact, uprooted such warmth of feeling from the ashen depths of his ancient self all for _her_. She shivered to think of these words in the quiet, private moments she had to herself each day, and then she forced herself to think of them again, enjoying the way her skin rippled and bloomed at the weight of his oath. She’d never ask him to do that, no–but oh how she _liked_ that he would.

No one else had this effect on her. No one else could charm and confuse, could astonish and irritate, all within the same dizzying, breathless moment. That fact alone was enough to terrify her further, and yet it did nothing to stop Emily from anticipating his visit. It was hard to truly fear a man after you’ve stared into his dark, naked eyes and tasted the wounds of his skin under your lips. Indeed, from where Emily was standing, she seemed to have this impossible man, the face and breath and voice of the Void, well within hand and in her full command–and that was even before he’d made the promise.

 _“I would pull the magic from my bones for you.”_ A bit grim and visceral, as far as declarations of love went, but for a woman like Emily Kaldwin, Empress of the Isles, kinslayer and Void-touched, it was nothing short of appropriate.

* * *

The memory of the Outsider’s voice never failed to rouse Emily from her dutiful world of meetings and masks and diplomats and decrees. In some ways it was all that made the burden of her long-accepted responsibility bearable, because she knew there was a small escape at the end of it. His voice, even just the memory of it, drew Emily deeper into the serpentine shadows and tempting shades of her dreams, which were becoming much more concrete and easy to understand, and much easier in making her blush.

Even so, Emily stepped, or sometimes hurled herself and her thoughts, headlong into the warmth and strangeness of their charm–and of _his_ charm as well, which always amazed as much as it quietly horrified.

* * *

The Fugue Feast made Emily’s mind feel like a howling wilderness. Her thoughts became lupine and impatient, gnawing on her own starved curiosity.

“You’re saying I can’t even show up in person to give my speech?” she demanded, glaring at her father as he delivered the unwelcome news. “Why bother having me write one at all if the High Overseer is just going to say it himself?”

“He considers it a show of good faith and the throne’s unwavering support,” Corvo mused, smirking into Void-dark coffee. “Even if that support can’t be shown in person.”

Emily shook her head and glowered at her mostly empty breakfast plate. Security and restrictions in the Tower had been noticeably tightened since she returned to her throne, but this seemed especially harsh–and not to mention somewhat out of bounds for the Abbey’s reach. _Does the High Overseer know that I’m Marked? No… How could he?_ Suspicion chewed at Emily’s gut, and she shoved her plate away as if to push back her sudden unease.

“It’s just for this one year,” Corvo said, trying to put a brave face on a pointlessly frustrating situation. “Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t just cancel the damn thing altogether. Consider this a sort of compromise.”

“I still don’t like it,” Emily said. “It sets a dangerous precedent–which, you know, is ironic, considering what the Abbey stands for.”

Corvo’s smile was doting, proud, and almost too much for her to bear. _At least Father doesn’t mind me making a casual hobby of heresy._

“Are you going to tell them that?” he asked, taking her by surprise. “You’ve argued stranger things against more stubborn men before.”

 _Oh, if you only knew, Father._ “If they even give me a chance.” Emily propped her chin up in her hand and tapped her nails against her cheek. The Mark of the Outsider pulsed coldly on the back of her gloved hand, like a dark, quiet heart living under her knuckles. It was almost as if it–or perhaps _he_ – were trying to send her a signal.

“I could always cite past precedents in my defense,” she began thoughtfully.

Corvo set down the _Dunwall Courier_ and laid his hands flat on the well-thumbed pages. “Like what?” he asked, keeping his face still. He always made his expressions into a mask when they discussed the shrewder points of politics. Teaching Emily how to choke a man out or fight with a sword was one thing, but guiding her mind to the sharper sides of manipulation and covertcy required a far more delicate touch.

“I know for a fact that Mother had her own parties during the Feast,” Emily said, keeping her voice steady. “She always promised I could have my own too, once I was old enough and had my own little court, even before I took the throne.”

Mentioning her mother was always a risky venture. Emily tried not to bring her up as much as she could, but the subject was like a wound on the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t quite stop herself from prodding it, even just to see how much hurt it kept sealed away.

To her father’s credit, Corvo kept his expression wooden and solid. Only his eyes gave his feelings away: they narrowed the smallest bit at the edges, as if he were hiding a wince. “Jessamine’s celebrations were a bit more… low-key than the usual Imperial affairs,” he said, sounding oddly sheepish. “She preferred her privacy.”

He cleared his throat and turned to look out the window at the gray, dark Dunwall morning.

Emily pressed her lips into a thin, neat line, and stared into the creamy mocha swirl of her coffee, her cheeks flaming red _._

“Still,” Corvo began, cutting across Emily’s heavy silence, “that doesn’t mean you can’t find some way to enjoy yourself. I’m sure your attendants would be happy to keep you company if you asked.”

Before Emily could respond, her father seemed to catch himself off guard. She frowned, puzzled, as Corvo sat bolt upright in his chair.

“Speaking of which–where’s Wyman gone off to?”

Emily’s heart curled into a fist of blood and aching muscle. “Morley,” she spat.

One word was too small to contain all her venom for her lover’s absence. Wyman’s disappearance was once again extended, unnecessary, and wholly unexpected–but she would be lying if she said it wasn’t entirely welcome, either.

Things hadn’t been the same between them since Delilah’s coup, a grim fact they both laid squarely at Emily’s own feet. _She_ wasn’t the same since then either, and that didn’t just include the dark dreams and almost chaste, wholly unchaperoned visits from the Outsider almost every week. Emily had become a heavier, harder thing. Her heart, once so determined to escape and be free, now sat dutifully inside its gilded cage, and saw her prestige for what it was: less a burden, and more an almighty responsibility.

She _owed_ it to the people of the Isles to give more than just her half-hearted time and attention to their causes and troubles. No more could she waste time on empty fun and even emptier diversions, usually in the form of contraband from Gristol. No, Emily’s empire asked for nothing short of everything she had in her to give. That left little room for sweet, simple fun–and even less space for the one who offered it.

“Should I be relieved or concerned?” Corvo asked, studying his daughter’s face with the trained look of both a father and a Spymaster.

Emily kept her face a carefully composed ask of pointed detachment as she took another long sip of her coffee. “Feel whatever you like, Father,” she said, her voice coming from the long distance of a resigned heart that was not quite broken. “Personally, I’m getting tired of it.”

“Give it time,” Corvo said, reaching over to close his hand over her own.

The Mark of the Outsider burned with cold fury against Emily’s skin. It wasn’t entirely her own.

* * *

The Outsider arrived fifteen minutes before midnight.

 _Someone’s a little keen,_ Emily thought, smirking wide, but before she could tease him on this, he broke the silence first.

“ _Do_ you want to give it time?” he asked, filling her bedchamber with shivering shadows and dark, inky mist. It was as if they had been speaking for hours, or as if he were a part of the conversation over that morning’s breakfast.

Emily should have known that the Outsider would seize upon the very subject she wanted to avoid. He made an art form out of poring over bruises and sore spots, it seemed. She knew this, and sometimes she knew it much better than she would have liked. The only forgivable thing about his habit was its absence of malice.

Well, if he was going to show up out of nowhere acting as if they had been talking all along, then she could, too. _Two can play at that game._ “I’d rather give it up,” Emily said with a shrug, setting down her latest letter from Dr. Hypatia so she could give her guest her full attention. “But… I shouldn’t. I can’t.”

“And why not?” Was she imagining it, or was his voice a bit… sharper than usual?

Emily didn’t answer again until she was seated at her vanity and staring at him in the reflection of her mirror. It was easier to confess things when there was a buffer in between. “You don’t give up on something just because it’s difficult. My mother taught me that. You work through the problem because it’s worth fighting for what’s important.” She lowered her eyes and peeled off her gloves, freeing the Mark on her hand. “You fight for what you love.”

“What do you owe this Wyman that they command such loyalty from you?” the Outsider wondered, his voice like a hiss.

Emily shook her head. “It’s not like that,” she argued. “You probably wouldn’t understand.”

“On the contrary, between the two of us I have the best chance of understanding.”

“Only because you cheat and read minds.”

The Outsider lifted one hand in an empty, shameless shrug. He didn’t deny it, and she was grateful. “Then let me rephrase my question. What do _you_ think this Wyman owes you that they are not supplying?”

“Everything,” Emily said at once, hating herself for being so hungry for the impossible, and hating how the world could never quite seem to manage even scraps of satisfaction. _All the world except for you,_ she thought, staring fearlessly at the Outsider’s dark, glittering eyes, wondering if he could hear _that_ particular damning confession, too. “I want every inch, every pound of flesh, every piece of bone and drop of blood and scrap of marrow.”

“And who would pay such a price, I wonder?” he mused.

 _He wants me to say it_. _He_ knows _I want to say it, too. Coward. Bastard._

Of all the things they had to share as a common element, it had to be _this_? But Emily wouldn’t fall so neatly into his hands as all that. No, she would show him instead.

She liked to imagine that she took the Outsider by surprise. Instead of heading over to her closet to change into her nightdress and robe, she stomped over to him and seized the front of his coat. In the same sharp, unflinching moment, Emily pulled him closer, her hands and hunger like a hook. There was no bait. She would not make this moment or her need easier for him to swallow. Let him suffer this with her, hooked, bound, and drowning.

Their kiss–not the first kiss, exactly, but their first kiss like _this_ –was greedy and hard. Emily gave up all her breath to do it.

What did Wyman owe her? They owed her everything they could never be, and Emily knew better than to demand the impossible. Her lover owed her dark hair, endless eyes, and a voice as strange as a dream and yet as sweet and Lady Boyle tea. Her lover owed her secrets and mysteries, ancient songs and old, withered bones from shores devoured by the indomitable sea. Her lover, and any and all lovers who hoped to have the Empress in their arms and on their lips, owed her magic. Yes, magic with its teeth and tongue and charms so sure and solid, that it could slip inside her heart like a stone and fill her with its strange, devouring power, transforming her more thoroughly into herself.

In short, everything the Outsider already was.

Outside, the massive clocktower began its sinister, doleful toll. Twelve beats rang in Emily’s ears, contrasting with the pounding of her heart.

The Outsider placed his long, cold hands on Emily’s shoulders and pushed her away just enough for her air to find its way back into her lungs. They were of the same height when he wasn’t doing his half impressive, fully infuriating floating trick. Emily felt a surge of savage pride at being able to look the face of the Void dead on in the eye. They might not be equals in experience or power, but they were an even, sure match.

Waiting until Emily caught her breath again, the Outsider took hold of her chin and held her face still. His cold touch moved like an iced Tyvian vintage through her skin and across her blood-heavy veins.

“It’s midnight,” he said, stroking her bottom lip with his thumb. “The Feast has begun.”

“Not for me,” Emily said, shaking her head, forcing the Outsider to follow her movement. He kept a firm hold on her chin, and she knew it was not to confine or constrict, but simply to touch, to hold, to _know_ her. Skin to skin, blood and cold bone. “The throne must always abstain, remember? I’m sure you overheard.”

“I have personally known several Empresses who had private Fugue revelries,” he said, smiling sharp enough to cut her heart. “Shall I tell you about them? Or would you rather demand some other story to pass the time?”

Several _Empresses? Just how many?_ Something hard lurched inside Emily’s gut, twisting her nerves in a tangled spiral. Her cheeks burned, and her blood became bonfires beating back the Outsider’s endless chill. Though she felt her temper rising, she poured all her focus into keeping her voice still.

“I’d rather you stop talking and kiss me again,” she said. “I like the taste of you.”

Slowly, carefully, with the steady grace and infinite patience of ages past and yet to dawn, the Outsider tilted his head to consider Emily before leaning in to grant her demand. It was a languid, measuring kiss, woven through with strangeness and charm, with greed and hunger, but also curiosity and the hidden, shrinking softness she had come to recognize as something inimitably, indefinably, undeniably _his_.

The Outsider was always more than Emily was expecting, more than she dreamed, dreaded, and and dared desire. More than the black eyes and whispering shadows, more than the terrible gifts and impossible secrets. If there was anyone alive–technically speaking–who might have a chance to offer her everything, if there was ever a person who might stop up the mouth of her wordless hunger, it would be him, without question.

All that remained now was how to _say_ it. Emily wondered if that was even important anymore, as she pulled on the Outsider’s jacket and walked backwards, blind, and kiss-starved to her bed. Perhaps she would find a way to say it in the morning, when their lips were less busy, and their hearts long-sated and heavy with their own private feast.

**Author's Note:**

> So I always headcanon’d that Emily and the Outsider would cave into their affections around the Fugue Feast, but I didn’t want to write like, shameless de Sadian-esque hedonism in order to convey it (even if that would be appropriate for the Feast itself). I settled instead on this, because it perfectly sets up one of the plot threads for my next project: a multichapter Emsider fic based on dark magic and ancient secrets and a trip to Pandyssia.
> 
> That's right. I'm going to finally get going on a multichapter Emsider fic, and it'll be a part of this series. I don't know when I'll be posting it--I'm hoping to have a handful of chapters done by mid-December, so I can upload it once a week throughout the holidays and into next year, but that all depends on how much time I have to write. I may still write mini-fics in between then and now, but since I write for a living, have an original novel in the works, and have OCs that need tending to, I'm sort of running myself ragged here.
> 
> Regardless, who cares! Multichapter fic is coming! It'll be weird and dark and strange! Yay!


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